China courted for new boom

Court reporter for The Age

China's Li Na, in action in late December, is the country's highest-profile player. Photo: Anthony Johnson

WHEN Li Na begins her Australian Open campaign, it's not exaggerating to say that hundreds of millions of her compatriots will be watching live.

So in order to capitalise on a booming interest in tennis in China, the Australian Open is making an unprecedented push into the sport's new frontier and doing it via a handful of digital platforms.

Media outlets such as Yuku, Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ might not mean much to Australians, but the platforms are enormously popular in China and it's on them that Tennis Australia staff will publish news stories, updates, photographs, audio, video clips and live scoring in a bid to take the Open to Beijing and beyond.

China boasts one of the best women's players in Na, but the sport is only starting to take off in the country. It has an estimated 14 million participants - up from 1 million a generation ago - is popular on television and is considered an aspirational sport, a game in which China will be able to compete with the rest of the world, especially if it directs some of its considerable resources to doing so.

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Tennis Australia digital and publishing manager Kim Trengove says it makes sense for the Australian Open to be promoted heavily in China, given the tournament's position as the grand slam of Asia and the Pacific, and that Australia's geographic proximity to Asia gives it advantages over the host nations of the other three majors.

''We feel that, 'Hey, this is our region and we're in the best position to do something','' Trengove says.

''We think there's a big opportunity for us and we're so much closer to educate.''

As part of Tennis Australia's push to gain Chinese attention, the Australian Open will this year be promoted on Sina Weibo - the Chinese equivalent of Twitter - and Yuku, a social networking website. Tencent QQ, one of most popular portals in China, also has a seemingly insatiable appetite for everything to do with the Australian Open, and will send four journalists to Melbourne to cover the event.

Trengove says that in a bid to better promote tennis and the tournament into China, Tennis Australia has employed Chinese language students from universities across Melbourne to help market Melbourne Park back to their homeland. Live online scoring in Mandarin and creating apps for Chinese tennis fans are other avenues that will take the sport into the world's most populous country.

Trengove says other Asian countries have also shown a growing interest in tennis and the Australian Open. She says the tournament experienced an influx of Japanese visitors last year when Kei Nishikori reached the quarter-finals in the men's draw, and India accounted for about one-sixth of the followers on Tennis Australia's official Facebook site.

She says the growth in interest in China makes for an exciting time in the pursuit to expand the Australian Open's popularity.

''It is all a huge unknown, and, having the journalists coming from Beijing, we're going to learn a lot,'' she says. ''There will be a lot more trips to Beijing to understand this market. But for us, this is really where our future is. Not just for the Australian Open but for people playing tennis.''